Do you really expect him to have his raid pull the boss, push it over during a scalpel to prove to you that it's fixed, fraps it, and upload a video, just to satisfy you :P? You're not gonna get that so fast, you might aswell try it out for yourself instead.

Uh, you skip two entire phases and only need 2 people to learn their golems, while half of the raid sits there and waits for 70%, ocassionaly aoe'ing respawning oozes.

I'm pretty sure I recall some boss having similar issues back in WotLK... I think? Been a long time, so I don't remember exactly what it was, but it did receive a hotfix buff to prevent zerging and bypassing mechanics. Which is almost the same as here. I believe it was Freya?

well the odds are 50/50 now some say its fixed some say its not fixed also i dont see any exploiting its just clever thought out raid strategy its not like you get any advantages out of it doing this

Are you serious that it's not "exploiting" and not an "advantage"?
Need I remind you of fights such as Hagara, where you could nullify the ice-phase bubble damage by using things that broke movement impairing effects, to basically skip everything the phase had to offer? That was fixed.
Or Ensidia's infamous lich king platform - they didn't even skip a *phase*, they just skipped one *mechanic* of P2, yet they got slapped with a banhammer.

You're skipping two entire phases, both of which requires you to deal with new mechanics. It is by no means "clever usage of game mechanics" - it's skipping and negating things you're supposed to deal with. "clever usage of game mechanics" would be stacking rogues for Garalon because they did blade flurry buffed damage on to garalon before it was fixed. Or using warlock portals to quickly get your stacker from the edge of Lei Shi's platform to the middle during "get away", to get the damage buff on to her. Or using disc priests with smite on bosses that has a dmg modifier (like elegon) for incredible healing+dps. That's "clever usage of game mechanics".

The distinction between an "exploit" and "clever usage of game mechanics", in my eyes, can be seen as such:

Is it something that negates a boss ability by means where it shouldn't be possible (EG, skipping phases - the boss gets a buff thrown on himself to prevent you from killing him while dealing with a monstrosity - it is clearly ment to be dealt with) - or is it something that makes a boss easier to deal with, as a flavor mechanic due to a specific ability (spirit link totems on spine working through the plasma debuffs to negate them/help top the raid).

It is quite obviously an exploit, as thats not how the boss encounter is intended to be.

However, that being said does anyone remember the zerg tactic on cho gal where you'd let like 80% of your raid go insane then just nuke him down?.. that was sorta an exploit.

be interesting to see if blizz just fix it, or leave it... i wonder if they will leave peoples kills that did it this way also, didnt they reset the ppl that exploited the gara fight by bringin him outside of the encounter?

Are you serious that it's not "exploiting" and not an "advantage"?
Need I remind you of fights such as Hagara, where you could nullify the ice-phase bubble damage by using things that broke movement impairing effects, to basically skip everything the phase had to offer? That was fixed.
Or Ensidia's infamous lich king platform - they didn't even skip a *phase*, they just skipped one *mechanic* of P2, yet they got slapped with a banhammer.

You're skipping two entire phases, both of which requires you to deal with new mechanics. It is by no means "clever usage of game mechanics" - it's skipping and negating things you're supposed to deal with. "clever usage of game mechanics" would be stacking rogues for Garalon because they did blade flurry buffed damage on to garalon before it was fixed. Or using warlock portals to quickly get your stacker from the edge of Lei Shi's platform to the middle during "get away", to get the damage buff on to her. Or using disc priests with smite on bosses that has a dmg modifier (like elegon) for incredible healing+dps. That's "clever usage of game mechanics".

The distinction between an "exploit" and "clever usage of game mechanics", in my eyes, can be seen as such:

Is it something that negates a boss ability by means where it shouldn't be possible (EG, skipping phases - the boss gets a buff thrown on himself to prevent you from killing him while dealing with a monstrosity - it is clearly ment to be dealt with) - or is it something that makes a boss easier to deal with, as a flavor mechanic due to a specific ability (spirit link totems on spine working through the plasma debuffs to negate them/help top the raid).

Ok, I get your point. But, for example if you mention elagon, think about this: if the raid group is strong enough to stack dmg taken increase on boss so high (during second orb phase), so they can kill boss during this and skip transition/last phase. You allso gonna call it exploiting? Its pretty much the same clever usage of mechanics. Just those mechanics are not fully functioning as they intended to be, so players who can push this are not entire can be called "exploiters". Its not an easy boss and its aboselutely NOT an easy way to kill this boss by doing this, since you require some neet preparation (first phase takes like 7-8mins just stacking debuff, there are kills with 6minutes marks on WoL), aswell you need some luck. Even if the tank runs away from the boss while he is casting scalpel and after that, boss needs to chace the tank for a while, you gonna call it an exploit here aswell or a clever use of mechanic?

How the hell is it an exploit? You're using a construct move that the boss turned you into... all you are doing is attacking the boss with it like you are supposed to... and bursting it during his long move... HOW the hell is it an exploit when you're using everything in the encounter like it supposed to.

Lich king was TOTALLY different, you used OUTSIDE resources to bug a platform.

It is quite obviously an exploit, as thats not how the boss encounter is intended to be.

However, that being said does anyone remember the zerg tactic on cho gal where you'd let like 80% of your raid go insane then just nuke him down?.. that was sorta an exploit.

Cho'gall tactic had a clear disadvantage, since your players could easily get killed without healing, plus high corruption increased raid damage considerably. Only mages really did that - gaining the most benefits, while being able to survive Cho'gall shadow hammer aoe's. I certainly don't recall having 80% of raid do that, you'd get killed by shadowbolt spamming tentacles.

How the hell is it an exploit? You're using a construct move that the boss turned you into... all you are doing is attacking the boss with it like you are supposed to... and bursting it during his long move... HOW the hell is it an exploit when you're using everything in the encounter like it supposed to.

Lich king was TOTALLY different, you used OUTSIDE resources to bug a platform.
Get your damn facts straight

You're completly ignoring everything I said in the post. Derp, derp, derp.
You skip two phases by killing the boss when you shouldn't be able to (he should be taking no damage after 70%), due to the boss casting.
You skip a mechanic by following your optimal DPS rotation because they rebuild a platform.

Killing the boss like this, is like if you could kill Kaelthas in Tempest keep while he's roleplaying - you skip the hard phases by damaging the boss while it's not intended to be damaged.

Won't get fixed and is not an exploit, It's a cheesy tactic that has been used by guilds since beta.

---------- Post added 2012-12-19 at 04:48 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Dracodraco

You're completly ignoring everything I said in the post. Derp, derp, derp.
You skip two phases by killing the boss when you shouldn't be able to (he should be taking no damage after 70%), due to the boss casting.
You skip a mechanic by following your optimal DPS rotation because they rebuild a platform.

Killing the boss like this, is like if you could kill Kaelthas in Tempest keep while he's roleplaying - you skip the hard phases by damaging the boss while it's not intended to be damaged.

Stacking stacks on a boss while he's not immune to stacking and then kill him while he's not immune to dmg in 20sec, is not an exploit either. You need to actively do something that is not allowed and gain advantage out of it for it to be an exploit. Afaik in this kill that isn't the case.

At the very most it's a clever way to do a fight and a dumb encounter design by blizzard.

You need to actively do something that is not allowed and gain advantage out of it for it to be an exploit. Afaik in this kill that isn't the case.

That is not how Blizzard has often defined a exploit. You can be doing something that is allowed but if it is not the intended way that it should be done, i.e. stacking a debuff way past what would be considered normal and bypassing a vast majority of a fight, then it can be considered a exploit.
Doing something that is not allowed is often thrown under the Cheating part of things.

If you must insist on using a non-sanctioned sitting apparatus, please consider the tensile strength
of the materials present in the object in question in comparison to your own mass volumetric density.In other words, stop breaking shit with your fat ass.

You're completly ignoring everything I said in the post. Derp, derp, derp.
You skip two phases by killing the boss when you shouldn't be able to (he should be taking no damage after 70%), due to the boss casting.
You skip a mechanic by following your optimal DPS rotation because they rebuild a platform.

Killing the boss like this, is like if you could kill Kaelthas in Tempest keep while he's roleplaying - you skip the hard phases by damaging the boss while it's not intended to be damaged.

I'm quite sure a few of the first guilds to kill him waited for the exact same thing to occur (scalpel + reshape life) to burn an additional 10-15% of the boss using a normal strat dealing with p2 and p3, and a lot of guilds keeps stacking the debuff on the boss during p2 to make p3 trivial.

If they never intended for this to happen an easy fix would have been to just make him apply the 99% reduction the moment he hit 70% even if he was casting anything else. There's only really 2 examples from the past I can think of tho were the same thing has been done and that's OS 3d by zerging the boss in 75s or what ever skipping the entire +3d mechanic and that was never fixed due to "to many guilds did it that way" and the Freya that was zerged trough the healing stacks and that was shortly after buffed to not be zergable.

So hard to say what they'll do if enough guilds kill it this way possibly they'll keep it.

And then considering the massive gray area that's between Exploit and Cleaver use of game mechanics kinda impossible to say what they'll count this as.

Need I remind you of fights such as Hagara, where you could nullify the ice-phase bubble damage by using things that broke movement impairing effects, to basically skip everything the phase had to offer? That was fixed.

And yet being able to instantly end lightning phase on 25man was never seen as broken and was never 'fixed', and neither was OS3D. Both entirely comparable for phase skipping.

Or Ensidia's infamous lich king platform - they didn't even skip a *phase*, they just skipped one *mechanic* of P2, yet they got slapped with a banhammer.

As I recall this was during progress for world first on a guild with one of the worst track records ever for legit kills.

You're skipping two entire phases, both of which requires you to deal with new mechanics. It is by no means "clever usage of game mechanics" - it's skipping and negating things you're supposed to deal with. "clever usage of game mechanics" would be stacking rogues for Garalon because they did blade flurry buffed damage on to garalon before it was fixed. Or using warlock portals to quickly get your stacker from the edge of Lei Shi's platform to the middle during "get away", to get the damage buff on to her. Or using disc priests with smite on bosses that has a dmg modifier (like elegon) for incredible healing+dps. That's "clever usage of game mechanics".

Exactly the same with OS3D. As I recall the first OS3D zerg was in mid-late 3.0, when the content was still relevant. Nothing got changed because it was long after there was any competition involved. They could have simply made it so sartharion can't die till the 3 drakes are dead and fixed it right there.

The distinction between an "exploit" and "clever usage of game mechanics", in my eyes, can be seen as such:

Is it something that negates a boss ability by means where it shouldn't be possible (EG, skipping phases - the boss gets a buff thrown on himself to prevent you from killing him while dealing with a monstrosity - it is clearly ment to be dealt with) - or is it something that makes a boss easier to deal with, as a flavor mechanic due to a specific ability (spirit link totems on spine working through the plasma debuffs to negate them/help top the raid).

There are tons of ways to skip boss abilities and/or phases through every expansion, even cataclysm. Out of interest how did you kill magmaw heroic? By any chance was it by waiting at 26%, then bringing the head down and burning it below 10% with everything popped essentially guaranteeing the kill if noone screwed up? As for classes, there are way too many where X class ability causes Y mechanic to be ignored. Dispersion probably caused more balance issues than anything else... between all the fights like baleroc and madness.

Won't get fixed and is not an exploit, It's a cheesy tactic that has been used by guilds since beta.

---------- Post added 2012-12-19 at 04:48 PM ----------

Stacking stacks on a boss while he's not immune to stacking and then kill him while he's not immune to dmg in 20sec, is not an exploit either. You need to actively do something that is not allowed and gain advantage out of it for it to be an exploit. Afaik in this kill that isn't the case.

Boss is not supposed to be damaged after he drops to 70% hp, as witnessed by the shield that is put on him by the monstrosity. That he can't gain the shield while casting is bad design, not a thumb's-up to skip phases.

Really, I have to admit that I find it odd that some people can even defend this tactic as "legit" -

If you could skip the meteor and leg phase of ragnaros, would you not see it as an exploit?
If you could skip the Valkyrs on Lich king, would you not see it as an exploit?
If you could dps a boss while it was going through it's RP speeches to kill it, would you not see it as an exploit?

I would. And I have no respect for anyone who doesn't. Fights are ment to be dealt with. Why would they design two phases, if they're okay with you rolling over them due to the boss not being able to summon the monstrosity during a cast?

Originally Posted by Raiju

And yet being able to instantly end lightning phase on 25man was never seen as broken and was never 'fixed', and neither was OS3D. Both entirely comparable for phase skipping.

Except you couldn't do that. The lightning still had to travel through every single person, requiring intense usage of raid cooldowns and healing as everyone's taking lightning ticks.

As I recall this was during progress for world first on a guild with one of the worst track records ever for legit kills.

Why does it matter? Is it not an exploit because it's not a top-end guild doing it?

Exactly the same with OS3D. As I recall the first OS3D zerg was in mid-late 3.0, when the content was still relevant. Nothing got changed because it was long after there was any competition involved. They could have simply made it so sartharion can't die till the 3 drakes are dead and fixed it right there.

I never said I agreed with using that tactic. And I've always thought it was stupid they didn't fix it.

There are tons of ways to skip boss abilities and/or phases through every expansion, even cataclysm. Out of interest how did you kill magmaw heroic? By any chance was it by waiting at 26%, then bringing the head down and burning it below 10% with everything popped essentially guaranteeing the kill if noone screwed up? As for classes, there are way too many where X class ability causes Y mechanic to be ignored. Dispersion probably caused more balance issues than anything else... between all the fights like baleroc and madness.